Stated Adaptation Survey of Activity Rescheduling

This paper describes an analysis of activity rescheduling responses to an unexpected 1-h delay in getting to an activity. To focus on this rescheduling scenario, a stated adaptation survey technique was developed in which the hypothetical scenario of an unexpected 1-h delay was introduced to a randomly chosen activity from the observed 2-day executed activity schedules of respondents. This paper describes the survey technique used to elicit stated adaptation responses to this conflict, an exploratory univariate analysis of the explanatory factors, and the results of a simple multinomial logistic regression model that attempts to explain the combined effects of a variety of explanatory variables. Finally, a comparison is made with other revealed preference data from an interactive scheduling process survey to shed light on the differences in rescheduling strategies for activity conflicts without forewarning. Attributes of the activity are the major influences behind the type of rescheduling actions taken. The only person and household attributes found to influence the response significantly are the involvement of children in the activity and the student status of the individual for whom the delay occurs. Schedule attributes are not found to have a significant effect. Some new evidence suggests that when conflicts occur with little forewarning, people are less likely to skip or change the day of the activity and more likely to shorten it, where possible, or shift it to another part of the day.